However, it remained inactive and without organization until 1976, when Ricardo Alegría made a request before the Council on Higher Education of Puerto Rico to transform the center into an academic institution.

[5] With the CEAPRC, Alegría intended for a small institution that possessed an intimate environment, with intellectual growth and the promotion of a region-wide Caribbean emphasis as its focus.

[6] In her 2002 book, Carmen Dolores Hernández credited the CEAPRC (which she labels an "experimental" institution "unparalleled in the island or the Antilles") with breaking away from the "cultural euro centrism" of higher education in Puerto Rico.

Foreign professors such as Irving Rouse, Peter Roe, Mario Veloz Maggiolo, Sally Price and Lourdes Domínguez also collaborated with the CEAPRC.

[12] During its early years it grew to include figures like Arturo Morales Carrión, José Arsenio Torres, Juan Rodríguez Cruz, Eugenio Fernández Méndez, Luis Díaz Soler, José Ramón de la Torre, María Teresa Babín, Carmelo Rosario Natal, Carmen M. Ramos de Santiago, Francisco López Cruz, Lidio Cruz Monclova, Andrés Sánchez Tarniella, Ernesto Jaime Ruíz de la Mata—a member of the short-lived surrealist group El Mirador Azul, Edgar Martínez Masdeu, Gervasio García, Arturo Santana, Héctor Campos Parsi, Luis Nieves Falcón and Esther Melón.

His work with the CEAPRC reached foreign academics such as Ángel Rama, who on August 10, 1983, noted in a letter that it had been a topic of discussion in a reunion held between him and Maldonado Denia at Paris.

[11][16] Since then, Ángel López Cantós, Antonio Lorente, Pedro Vergés, Lourdes Domínguez, Lorenzo Rubio, Jesús Urrea, Juan Tena Ibarra, Demetrio Ramos, Jorge Febles and Lucio Mijares Pérez, among others have served as invited professors.

[10] Through it Alegría published La vida de Jesucristo según el santero puertorriqueño Florencio Cabán and Primeras representaciones gráficas del indio americano (1493–1523).

[16] Other publications include Osiris Delgado's El pintor Francisco Oller y Cestero, Félix Ojeda Reyes' La manigua en París: correspondencia diplomática de Ramón E. Betances and Flor Piñero de Rivera's Arturo Schomburg: un puertorriqueño descubre el legado histórico del negro.

[22] As the agreement was about to end, rumors circled that the Romero Barceló administration intended to close down the CEAPRC, opposing the frequent presence of political opponents within the premises.

[22] Alegría, however, warned Rafael Rivera García of the Office of Cultural Affairs that he would have to be ousted from Casa Blanca by the police, but ultimately decided to move after new ICP director Leticia del Rosario intended to raise the loan to recover the $6,000.

A Middle States evaluation team reviewed the status in 1987, considering the CEAPRC an "institution with [...] a well-defined view of itself" when comparing it to other Universities and colleges.

[12] In July 1987, the CEAC collaborated with the Puerto Rican Cultural Heritage House of New York in a course offered from teachers from the diaspora.

[23] The Museo de las Américas, inaugurated during this year, was viewed by Alegría as the culmination of his life's work, bringing together several past initiatives.

[23] In June 1993, budget cuts by the Pedro Rosselló administration ended a yearly legislative donation of $100,000 when the House of Representatives eliminated it after Carlos Juan López Nieves criticized that Alegría was personally involved with the CEAPRC and it had "become [his] business".

By this time, the CEAPRC's library had grown to include 14,000 books and hosted the Guillermo Esteves Volckers, Rosa Estades and Monelisa Pérez Marchand collections, as well as audiovisual content and documentation.

[30] By this time, figures like Juan Manuel García Passalaqua, Enrique Laguerre, Luis De la Rosa, Guillermo Baralt, Blanca Silvestrini, José Ferrer Canales, Ana Sagardía, Federico Acevedo, Ramón Luis Acevedo, Carmen Isabel Raffuci, Antonio J. González and Silvia Álvarez Curbelo had served as professors in the CEAPRC.